Ethnic Hostility among Ethnic Majority and Minority Groups

1987). Assessment of the importance of types of ethnic competition remains to be made (Taylor,
1998). In this chapter, we aim to investigate the relative impact of different types of ethnic
competition (i.e. economic, cultural, and physical) on opposition to ethnic intermarriage.
As a result of ECT’s group level focal point, most studies focusing on the impact of
contextual characteristics on ethnic hostility have used the country as a unit of measurement.
However, there are several reasons to expect that structural characteristics of smaller geographical
units than the country, such as municipalities and neighbourhoods, affect ethnic hostility, and
hence opposition to ethnic intermarriage. The second aim of our chapter is to investigate to what
extent neighbourhood and municipality characteristics affect opposition to ethnic intermarriage
next to individual characteristics.
Results of recent studies on the link between the competitive environment and
ethnic hostility have been inconsistent (Gijsberts & Dagevos, 2004; Lubbers et al., 2006; Oliver
& Mendelberg, 2000; Quillian, 1995; Semyonov et al., 2006; Taylor, 1998). Taylor (1998) has
shown that resistance among whites towards blacks is higher when the proportion of blacks in
neighbourhoods or schools is higher, but could not relate the percentage of Latinos to anti-Latino
sentiments. Lubbers, Scheepers and Billiet (2000) showed that far right-wing voting in Belgium
depends on the percentage of ethnic outgroups at the municipality level. But in a study on the
German situation, Semyonov et al. (2006) could not support the theoretical expectation that the
size of the ethnic outgroup in the locale increases exclusionary attitudes. Gijsberts and Dagevos
(2004) showed that an infl ux of ethnic minorities at the neighbourhood level increases negative
stereotypes, but did not infl uence attitudes related to the Dutch multicultural society. The effects
of relative group sizes and other characteristics of the living environment on ethnic hostility may
depend on the hostile attitude in question, the unit of measurement of the locale, and the specifi c
outgroup.
If ethnic competition affects ethnic exclusionism, as ECT predicts, it should have an
effect on views regarding ethnic heterogamy, since acceptance of a member of an ethnic outgroup
as a close relative is the ultimate form of ethnic inclusion. However, for a sub-sample, we are
able to compare our results regarding opposition to ethnic intermarriage with other indicators
of ethnic hostility (i.e. reluctance to grant residence permits to migrants and negative views on
the multicultural society). In this chapter we have three levels of measurement: the individual,
the neighbourhood and the municipality. Moreover, to explore whether there are group-specifi c
exclusionistic reactions we will investigate opposition to ethnic heterogamy in relation to Turks,
Moroccans and the Surinamese, the main ethnic groups in the Netherlands. We contribute to the
body of literature by including, for the fi rst time, a wide array of indicators for regional variance
in ethnic competition in the explanatory model, next to relative group size measures and relevant
individual-level characteristics.
The above leads to the following research question: To what extent do characteristics of
Dutch neighbourhoods and municipalities related to economic, cultural or safety threats affect ethnic
hostility (i.e. opposition to ethnic intermarriage, reluctance to grant residence permits to migrants
and negative views on the multicultural society)?
We will test several hypotheses derived from ECT and Contact Theory with a national
50